Level 30

Microsoft’s Surface family of hardware products have generally been lauded by the press for their seemingly high-quality designs, first-party status, and for getting most of the details right with regards to ergonomics and functionality (often times, later being copied by third-party manufacturers). Publications like Consumer Reports have also given Surface laptops and tablets recommended ratings based on their own in-house testing.

However, Consumer Reports is now walking back its recommended rating after receiving tens of thousands of responses from its subscribers. In particular, the publication says that the predicted reliability of the Surface Book and the recently introduced Surface Laptop falls below that of competitors in the sector based on a survey of 90,000 of its readers. In fact, Surface products are “significantly less reliable than most other brands”.

Its finding showed that roughly 25 percent of the devices will have one or more problems within the first two years of ownership. As a result, it will no longer recommend any Microsoft-branded laptop, tablet or convertible. This includes the new Surface Pro. Recommended ratings have been pulled for both the 128GB and 256GB Surface Laptop along with the 128GB and 512GB Surface Book.

Level 7

I found this surprising in the outset (given the quality of the hardware), but after reading about it, makes sense.

M$ has made custom firmware and drivers which took too much time to update (issues with power management, Skylake). Bluescreens, driver crashes leading to higher return rates. I certainly would not buy M$ products unless forced to, given their attitude towards Win10 spying.

Level 11

I beg to differ. There are app. 100.000 different Unix-like OS flavors out there that cater to any possible whim and run mighty well on almost any hardware these days. In this day and age you can be a complete numbnut and install and use Linux just fine. Of course, there's also macOS. And lots of ways to get Windows 10 to stop yapping. My girlfriend is harder to shut up.

Level 5

I had a surface pro 4 for ordinary kinds of stuff, one of the worst laptops/tablets I've ever had, full of bad quality control flaws and one of the worst fan controls and quality. nearly every surface I've seen had a screen bleeding issue, weird fan noises, and behavior. in contrast, i had a MacBook retina MGXA2 the best laptop I ever used, I believe apple ios devices really are not that good and androids are somehow better, but man, macs are way ahead of others in terms of quality and especially attention to details you never see in other PC products. one of the most sophisticated fan controls and heat management in laptops, really good OS in terms of stability and high DPI management and performance, best touchpad with really low latency and really good quality, really good sustained performance.
I'm currently using an Asus ROG GL702VM since I play games a little it's a really good laptop and I'm more satisfied with this than surface pro 4! but I'm considering to go back to mac, I missed the quality it had.

Level 21

I beg to differ. There are app. 100.000 different Unix-like OS flavors out there that cater to any possible whim and run mighty well on almost any hardware these days. In this day and age you can be a complete numbnut and install and use Linux just fine. Of course, there's also macOS. And lots of ways to get Windows 10 to stop yapping. My girlfriend is harder to shut up.

But will those OS fulfill users needs with all the lack of apps and games? Not everyone can afford Macs to use MacOS. Unless they make cheap Macs. Linux and Unix are not viable alternative for average users at the moment. Yes, it maybe easy to install nowadays for average users but they won't bother. Its really hard to make them change OS. They will stay with something they're familiar with even if the alternative is easy. Some big company have to make huge push to do so. Like Google or Apple level big. But Google and Apple spy as well.
Who knows how much driver and compatibility issues you face while using Linux. Yes, you hear linux running better even on older hardware compared to Windows but number of home Linux users are way low compared to Windows so obviously you won't hear about issues its having as much as Windows.

Level 21

I had a surface pro 4 for ordinary kinds of stuff, one of the worst laptops/tablets I've ever had, full of bad quality control flaws and one of the worst fan controls and quality. nearly every surface I've seen had a screen bleeding issue, weird fan noises, and behavior. in contrast, i had a MacBook retina MGXA2 the best laptop I ever used, I believe apple ios devices really are not that good and androids are somehow better, but man, macs are way ahead of others in terms of quality and especially attention to details you never see in other PC products. one of the most sophisticated fan controls and heat management in laptops, really good OS in terms of stability and high DPI management and performance, best touchpad with really low latency and really good quality, really good sustained performance.
I'm currently using an Asus ROG GL702VM since I play games a little it's a really good laptop and I'm more satisfied with this than surface pro 4! but I'm considering to go back to mac, I missed the quality it had.

So the choice is there, one might just have to save up for a bit. And then there's always the possibility to install macOS on alternative hardware, which is perfectly legal in Germany, but that will vary from country to country.

Yes, it maybe easy to install nowadays for average users but they won't bother. Its really hard to make them change OS.

Level 5

mate, I hope you get one. most of the time since Macs are more expensive you have to sacrifice screen size to get one. like getting a 13-inch MacBook pro even in the lowest config, it is good. I don't recommend the air series. I believe if you get an ios device you pay for a brand if you get a mac you pay for engineering.

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